California State University, Long Beach and two neighboring community colleges will develop a bridge program built upon: 1. providing research experiences for both students and faculty to enhance both the level of institutional cooperation and professional backgrounds. 2. developing a mechanism to ensure a smoother transition of students from the community college by personalized mentoring and counseling. 3. strengthening the curriculum at the institutions by providing special workshops and seminars. These two community colleges are the most important points of entry into science of many of our local students from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds. A total of underrepresented students are currently enrolled in these two-year colleges in declared science and mathematics majors.This represents a tremendous pool of talent which must be addressed if we expect the pipeline of education to be realized for these students. The program is built upon strengthening the personal ties between the facilities and students of the participating institutions. The MARC and MBRS students and faculty from CSULB will be significantly involved in enhancing this bridge. Cooperative research in the biomedical sciences will be the common trend that binds the program together to lend to improved transfer and articulation between our institutions.